Alt for Norge Daily Journal: Day 36 - May 28, 2012 (Episode 6)

Today was a long day of filming, including finishing our first team challenge, competing in our second team challenge and filming all the interviews that go with it. A long day!

We got started early and headed back to the previous day’s island. When we got there, they moved us to a different location and this time asked the Blue Team to go first. Our team went back to our hole for another hour or so. Again, it was really cold and slightly rainy. Even my four layers weren’t enough, but at least it wasn’t as bad as yesterday!

Seagull eggs.

After the Blue Team finished up, it was our turn. The task was simple; find 10 seagull eggs hidden around a portion of the island. The only catch was that we needed to stay in pairs, so that they could leave one camera on Henriette, and one each, for each pair of cast members. Knowing that, we decided to have Jessica and CJ go off in one pair and Tara and I would be the other pair, thinking that Tara and I might be able to cover more ground. As soon as Henriette said go, we immediately got started looking everywhere, but had a planned path that we were going to follow, that would each circle half the designated area, ending us back at the starting point.

Tara and I went right and we were able to find a couple eggs really quickly. Then, we found a nest of 3 eggs together! The only problem was that they were slightly larger and a different color than the first eggs we found. I doubted that they counted, but brought them along, just in case.

Both pairs covered their specified areas and made a full circle back to the starting area, where I asked Henriette if those 3 larger eggs counted, which she replied, “no.” I immediately put them down and we all ran back out. Together with C.J. and Jessica’s findings, we had a total of 6 eggs. We all ran back to our starting areas, looking in spots that we may have missed before. C.J. yelled out that he had found one, then Tara found two, with Jessica finding our 10^th! We all took off for Henriette, where she confirmed that we had found our 10, then stopped the clock. We thought we did okay, but we weren’t too sure. There was no way to really know how we did in comparison to the other team.

After interviews, we did the results with Henriette. Both teams standing in front of her, she announces that one team was 49 seconds faster, with a total time of just over 11 minutes. The winners……Red Team! We’ve just earned an advantage in the second team challenge!

After more interviews, the boat picked us up and we headed off the island and back to our hotel for lunch. After lunch, we gathered to film the introduction to our second challenge. We were told that we were going to have a “Norwegian picnic!” Each team would have to make four sandwiches, as well as drink four glasses of wine. (Specifically, each team would have to set up a table and four chairs, peel 30 shrimp, cut slices of bread, make and eat those sandwiches, as well as pour four glasses of wine and drink the wine.) The catch was that all of this would take place in less-than-favorable conditions, at that point revealing a large wind machine, a hose with a sprinkler, and a bag full of small, white particles! The Blue Team would go first. (Two things to note: Our team would be given five pre-peeled shrimp as our advantage for winning the first team challenge, and each team was given the option to use mayonnaise on their sandwich to help the shrimp stick.)

Again, the Blue Team would go first, so our team spent that time strategizing. The plan would be that I would set up the table, cut the bread and pour the wine. Tara would hold the wine glasses and spread the mayo on the bread. C.J. and Jessica would simply focus on peeling the shrimp (however, if Tara and I didn’t have other tasks to do, we would help with the shrimp as well). As soon as enough shrimp were peeled, we would start making the sandwiches and start eating while continuing to peel the remaining shrimp. We knew that Jessica could eat fast, so the order of eating would be Tara, myself, C.J. and Jessica, with as many shrimp as possible going on the first two sandwiches so that the last two would go down easier/quicker.

When it was our turn, that’s exactly how things went, except for one large mistake. Tara had messed up the order of how the sandwiches were dispersed. She gave the first sandwich to me, which was wrong, but fine, but the big mistake was when she gave the third sandwich to Jessica and not C.J.. Instead of having our best eater finishing the last sandwich, C.J. was stuck with the challenge of getting it down, which he was struggling with. Although he probably finished a lot quicker than what we thought at the time, it seemed like it was taking forever! (We even were screaming to swallow it down, which he replied, “I’m f*%#ing trying!” When it was done, we celebrated, thinking that we must have done well enough to win. Plus, it was a really messy and fun challenge. We were all soaked and had mayonnaise all over us. We even pulled our bag of wine (yes, a bag!) back out to celebrate some more. I even brought the bag of wine with me to my post-competition interview, which didn’t last long, with director Eli asking me to put it down! (Funny note: After the Blue Team had gone, but prior to our turn, we had to wait in the back of a box truck with the film crew, waiting for a nasty hail storm to pass! Pretty funny seeing that they were going to have us have a picnic in a faked hail storm!)

We did our post-competition interviews, got cleaned up (I apparently cut myself with the knife, but nothing too bad), and got in line for the results and to see which team would have to go to individual challenges.

After the usual Henriette build up, she let us know that it was a total of four seconds separating the two teams! Then, she said, “Red Team, you had the advantage going into this competition.” At that point, I knew we had lost! Damn! Turns out, the Blue Team decided not to use mayo, so that person could focus on peeling shrimp. It made it harder to eat the sandwiches, but that, combined with our fumbling of the sandwich-eating order, had to be the difference. I did my post-results interviews, holding back a lot of emotions that were welling up inside of me, but when we were finished, I had a moment that I wasn’t too proud of. While walking back with a few people from my team, the emotions bubbled up and I went off on how upset I was that we lost! I spent my walk back to our cabin venting to Mama Brita and a few others, stepped inside my cabin to get away from everyone and then went out the back door to take a walk down the pier. I found a hidden spot at the end of the pier where no one could see me and then took a seat. I don’t know if it was the loss of our team challenge, knowing that I could now be eliminated, being away from my family and not having my wife and best friend to vent to, or simply the wine that we consumed during our challenge, but all of the sudden I lost it and just broke down with a bunch of cuss words and a few tears! As emotional as I was though, the tears didn’t last long. I immediately gathered myself and turned those emotions into a complete focus on getting through our elimination challenge. I will not lose!!

Amy, Jessica, and Johnathan joined me for a midnight walk and some venting.

I headed back to the cabin and got cleaned up, so that I could meet everyone for dinner. There, I had a couple extra drinks to calm my nerves, but ended up having to film one more scene for the day, so that was interesting. We were going to have a “briggefest” which was a pier-party with the locals. I was still in a pretty bad mood, so I wasn’t too excited about it. However, as soon as we got out there, I found a group of local kids, with several of them near my girls’ ages, so I immediately started to play with them. There was a huge language barrier, but we were still able to have a great time. This party helped me out a lot and I was feeling much better. Along with that, when the party was over, Jessica, Amy, Johnathan and I went for a nice long walk and spent a lot of time talking about today’s events. It felt really good to be able to get everything out! We spent the next two hours walking and talking all around this small town, discovering all its different areas, always in daylight, which was weird, since it was so late. Eventually, we started to make our way back, but made a pact that we were all going to make it through this individual challenge (which was really just Jessica and I, since Johnathan and Amy weren’t in it), so that we could celebrate my birthday in Oslo during the next episode!!

Not sure whose boat this is, but felt the need for a picture on it!

Shortly after that, we said good night, Johnathan and I returning to our room with a little more conversation. I’ve actually grown really fond of that guy! He does some really weird and funny stuff, but he’s genuinely a good guy and one that I’ll definitely stay in contact with!

Day 36 Over!